The document discusses how the speaker built a distributed agile team to develop a successful mobile app for Morningstar for iPad. Key points include: - The project started in 2011 and involved developing concurrently for iOS and a Java backend. - The team implemented agile practices like continuous integration, automated testing, and tracking work in JIRA to facilitate distributed development. - The app launched in 2013 and became a top 10 finance app, demonstrating the effectiveness of their distributed agile approach to mobile development.

1. Building
Mobile
Masterpiece
with
Distributed
Agile
Weerasak
(Wee)
Witthawaskul
October
22,
2013

2. First,
thanks
to…
!
@weera
for
making
the
meetup
possible
!
Agile66
Facebook
page
!
Geeky
Base
for
location
and
facility
!
And
all
of
you,
curious
smart
minds

3. Who
am
I?

4. Who
am
I?

5. Why
should
you
listen
to
me?
!
You
already
know
agile
and
want
to
know
how
I
adopted
distributed
agile
!
You
want
to
know
why
mobile
development
has
more
challenges
than
web
development
!
How
you
can
apply
agility
to
your
projects

6. Case
Study

7. Morningstar
for
iPad
!
Portfolio
management
and
financial
research
app
!
Shipped
in
September
2013
!
Top
10
in
Finance
free
app
in
US
store
as
of
October
2013

8. Demo
time

9. Project
History
!
Initiated
in
2011
as
an
incubator
project
to
experiment
and
complement
morningstar.com's
user
experience
using
tablets
!
The
company
already
had
smartphone
apps
on
iPhone,
Android,
Blackberry
from
a
China
team
!
I
joined
the
company
in
April
2011
as
the
first
Chicago
developer
!
Zero
professional
experience
with
mobile,
how
to
start?

10. Initial
Observations
• Management
buy-­‐in
to
use
Agile
methods
• Young,
energetic
team
• Lack
of
process
&
automation
• UI
Design
work
was
not
in
the
same
sprints
• Ambitious
cross
platform
architecture
• Lack
of
OO
Design
&
Clean
Code
discipline

11. Action
Items
• Communication,
communication,
communication
• Architectural
and
Process
Analysis
• Continuous
Integration
Setup
• Product,
Design
and
Development
Sprint
Alignment
• Agile
Practice
Training
&
TDD

12. Tools
• JIRAs
for
distributed
team
whiteboards
• Jenkins
for
automated
build
&
deployment
• TestFlight
for
iOS
app
internal
distribution

13. Build
Pipeline
–
iOS
Client
Unit
Test
Build
Main
Build
Client
code
checkins
UI
Automati
on
Build
Automated
User
Acceptance
Tests
TestFlight

14. Build
Pipeline
–
Server
Unit
Test
Build
Server
code
checkins
Manual
deploy
Sanity
Test
Builds
with
Main
Build
SoapUI
Auto
deploy
Internal
Dev
Server
Stable
Dev
Server

15. Continuous
Integration
• Morningstar
app
for
iPad
– 7,300+
(client)
and
2,600+
(server)
commits
– 4,000+
automated
iPad
builds
&
deployments
– 1,000+
automated
server
builds
&
deployments
– Code
checkins
à
Test
builds
à
Deploy
builds
10/22/13
Mobile Solutions Development
Team
15

16. Past
Internal
Environments
Build
&
Auto
Deploy
Build
&
Auto
Deploy
Build
&
Auto
Deploy
Dev
Server
Manual
1-­‐click
Deploy
Stable
Dev
Server
OK
iOS
Devices
10/22/13
OK
OK
Mobile
Solutions
Development
Team
16

17. Current
Environments
Build
&
Auto
Deploy
Build
&
Auto
Deploy
Build
&
Auto
Deploy
Dev
Server
Stable
Dev
Server
QA
Server
Staging
Server
Live
Server
iOS
Devices
Manual
1-­‐click
Deploy
with
approval

18. Test
Driven
Development
• Client
– 400+
Classes,
72,000+
LOC,
160+
XIBs
– 600+
Unit
Tests
– GHUnit
for
testing,
OCMock
for
mocking
– User
Acceptance
Testing
• Behavior
Driven
Test
with
Frank
(retired)
• Apple
UIAutomation
(under
development)
10/22/13
Mobile Solutions Development
Team
18

19. Test
Driven
Development
• Server
– 230+
classes,
20K+
LOC
– 180+
test
classes,
20K+
LOC
– 86%
line
coverage
– 65%
conditionals
coverage
– JUnit
for
testing
– JMockIt
for
mocking
10/22/13
Mobile Solutions Development
Team
19

20. Full
Stack
Mobile
Development
• Concurrent
client
(iPad)
and
server
(Java)
development
• Multi-­‐version
support
• Client
or
server
logic
• Skillsets

21. Evolving
Architectures
Request/
Response
Client-­‐side
Publish/
Subscribe
Async
Server-­‐
side
Publish/
Subscribe
Past
Present
Future

22. Gateway
Architecture
Apple
iTunes
In
App
Purchase
Login
Morningstar
iPad
app
REST/JSON
over
HTTPS
Morningstar
Mobile
Server
Portfolio
API
Others
UIWebView
over
HTTPS
HTML
pages

23. Reusable
Components
Popover
with
bottom
fade
effect
Securities
labels
with
ratings
Security
Charts

24. Publish/Subscribe
Architecture
Based
on
Event
subscription/notification
from
NSNotificationCenter
User
taps
to
see
mini-­‐quote
Each
row
subscribes
to
its
security
object
When
the
app
receives
updates
to
a
security
object,
all
subscribers
get
latest
data
and
update
views

25. Internal
Features
• Feature
Toggles
• Internal
Server
Connection
• “Shake”
Feedback
• Logging
&
Performance
Monitoring

26. Feature
Toggles
• Allow
us
to
experiment
with
new
features
• Can
be
used
to
enable/disable
features
based
on
context
Mobile Solutions Development
10/22/13
Team

27. RESTful
APIs
• Since
we
cannot
control
published
app
customer
upgrades*,
we
have
to
make
sure
the
server
supports
multiple
client
app
versions,
different
locales,
multiple
products.
– REST
with
JSON
over
HTTPS
– Cacheability,
CDN
friendly
(Akamai/Varnish)

28. RESTful
API
Examples
• HTTPS
GET/PUT/POST/DELETE/OPTIONS
• Endpoint
convention
– Format:
https://{dns}/{ServicePrefix}/{resources}
– ServicePrefix
• /service/1.0/locales/en-­‐US/products/RT/
– REST
resources
• /securities/USA:MORN/news
• /securities/USA:MORN/quotes
• /securities/USA:MORN/info
• Example
– GET
https://mobileservice.morningstar.com/service/1.0/locales/en-­‐US/products/
RT/securities/USA:MORN/news

29. Standard
Data
Formats
• “Glue”
between
client/server
• Standard
formats
for
Security,
Holding,
Portfolio,
News
etc.
• Reusable
parsers
• JSON
data
types
• DateTime
in
UTC
(ISO8601)
• Regardless
of
data
formats
from
different
data
sources,
mobile
server
and
app
share
one
common
format

30. Async
I/O
Promise<HttpResponse>,
WS.getAsync
and
Promise.waitAll
Server
Chained
of
HTTP
response
Promises
waitAll
Thread
yield
transform
&
serialize
results
Security
Data
Portfolio
API
Async
calls
CMS

31. Launch
Results
• Public
launched
on
Sep
16,
2013
• 5,000
app
downloads
in
1
week
• 1M
web
service
calls
in
1
week;
4M
calls
in
3
weeks
• Average
web
service
response
time
is
~712ms

32. Rome
was
not
built
in
a
day
• Agile
is
more
a
guideline.
Mix
&
match
for
your
team
• Focus
on
working
software
• Iterate,
iterate
and
iterate
• Internal
feedback
is
good;
external
feedback
is
great
• Deadline
vs
Feature
dilemma
• Continual
improvements
and
releases
are
key
to
improve
user
engagement
&
satisfaction

33. First
release
is
just
the
beginning
Creating
masterpiece
is
the
end
goal
Thanks
&
Questions?
@_wee_